People who have skill can do the same without LLMs, maybe slightly slower on average but on more predictable schedule.

I wouldn’t say slightly slower; LLMs are massively useful for software engineering in the right hands.

For some personal projects I still stick to the basics and write everything by hand though. It’s kinda nice and grounding; and almost feels like a detox.

For any new software engineer, I’m a strong advocate of zero LLM use (except maybe as a stack overflow alternative) for your first few months.